When it comes to family trips, I tend to think in terms of subtraction. As in, here’s the trip I envision but to make it a “family trip” I’ll need to shave off some days and some miles.
This happened earlier this summer on a family bikepacking trip in central Vermont. Leading up to our departure, I’d repeatedly poured over maps to whittle it down to a seemingly doable 60 miles of riding over five days.
Most of our riding would be on the gravel and dirt roads of the Green Mountain National Forest. The GMNF starts just east of Bennington and stretches north of Rutland, Vermont. It is chock full of peaks and rivers and miles of improved gravel roads and miles of unimproved dirt roads. Of our 60-mile route, less than five miles would be on pavement and many of those miles were so we could resupply at the general store in Ripton, Vermont.
My wife, Gillian, our nine-year-old daughter, who we call “Little Wren” and I began pedaling just north of Lincoln, Vermont on the slopes of Mount Abraham. Admittedly, our start point was bit of manipulation - we started high in elevation so we’d have several miles of smiling downhill to begin our trip.
Our route was more or less planned but we also left room for chance. There are campgrounds in the GMNF but also a variety of unmarked, unofficial sites we hoped to sample. We scored one our first night by a small waterfall on the New Haven River.
On any multi-day trip, there are going to be days when the gods of cycling and camping smile down on you. Then, there are going to be hard days. The crux of our trip came when we entered the Moosamaloo National Recreation Area below Ripton. It was late, it was hot and the hills were against us. The extra weight of our camping gear (Little Wren gamely carried her own pack) made us resort to “hike-a-bike” up the climbs (this was not the only time we pushed the bikes.)
As I pushed my bike up the hill with Gillian and Little Wren, I wondered if I hadn’t subtracted enough. If I’d confused what I’d hoped we could do with what we could actually do. I am perfectly comfortable making myself uncomfortable and seek it out sometimes, but I don’t want to inflict it on the people I care about.
With some struggle, after 16 miles we finally made it to a campground. We had a snack, pitched our tent and within a few minutes, the little girl I was afraid I’d broken was back on her bike. She discovered a pump track, a sort of mountain bike obstacle course, in the campground and repeatedly shredded that thing.
The trip started new for me then. Subtraction was no longer part of the equation. I thought different about the people around me. How much tougher our little tribe was than I’d given them credit for. How proud I was that we made it through the day. I understood how lucky I was to have a wife and daughter willing to do nutty things like go on a multi-day bikepacking trip. I understood (again) how lucky we are to have so many wild options around this place we live.
The gods of cycling smiled on us the next day. The climbs were mild, the miles short and we rode with distant Adirondack views and close views of bluebirds, wildflower meadows and the Green Mountains.
There are roads to Silver Lake but no vehicle access – bikes, horses and human feet are the only way to get there. We cruised a car-less dirt road to a sunny campsite perched above the lake. We switched from bike clothes to swimsuits and tested the waters.
Two miles from Silver Lake is the large, crowded campground at Branbury State Park. We had only one interest in Branbury – the snack bar. We launched a raid for greasy, fried food before returning to our quiet lake-side paradise.
Our plan was to ride north to finish our loop with another night out but plans change. It wasn’t addition or subtraction, just tailoring our plans in light of new information – we really wanted a second night at Silver Lake.
The next day, Gillian and Little Wren did a hike while I biked back to our car, moving it near Lake Dunmore, a few short, downhill miles from our Silver Lake campsite.
After leaving the car, I rode back to Silver Lake with sugary treasures and cold drinks from the camp store for our final night. At our campsite, Little Wren had written “I love the woods” on a flat rock with a blackened stick. We ate dinner and watched the setting sun turn both the sky and water pink and orange and red. We drifted off to sleep to the sounds of owls and loons. The trip became more than I could have planned or hoped.